Updated Report & Data Illustrate Distributed Solar Pricing & Design Trends

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We’re happy to announce the discharge of the most recent version of Berkeley Lab’s Tracking the Sun annual report, describing tendencies for distributed photo voltaic photovoltaic (PV) methods in america, together with the rising contingent of distributed solar-plus-storage methods. The report relies on information from roughly 3.7 million methods put in nationally by year-end 2023, capturing near 80% of all methods put in as much as that time and greater than 70% of additives in 2023. This 12 months’s report updates key tendencies associated to mission traits, system design, and pricing, and presents new materials counting on constructing and property information built-in into the Monitoring the Solar dataset.

The report, revealed in slide-deck format, is accompanied by a story govt abstract, interactive information visualizations, and a public information file, all obtainable by the hyperlink above. The authors will host a webinar summarizing key findings from the report on September 4^th at 10 am Pacific. Please register for the webinar right here: https://lbnl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_w4ImuN7yRcWN1TPUvJIEng

The next are a couple of key findings from the most recent version of the report.

Residential methods proceed getting bigger, pushed by rising module effectivity. Residential system sizes have risen steadily over the previous twenty years, reaching a median of seven.4 kW in 2023. System sizes have grown almost in lock-step with PV module efficiencies, as proven within the left-hand panel of Determine 1. Increased module efficiencies permit for extra PV capability, as residential methods are sometimes space-constrained resulting from shading, obstructions, and blended roof orientations. As proven within the right-hand panel of Determine 1, roof-coverage ratios (the proportion of roof-space utilized by the PV modules) usually vary from 20-40% in residential functions and have risen solely barely since 2010.

Non-residential PV adopters span a various set of sectors, as small agricultural methods broaden their share. As proven in Determine 2, half of all non-residential installations in 2023 have been put in on industrial properties (together with retail, industrial, workplace, warehouse services), roughly one-third on agricultural properties, and 15% by tax-exempt (e.g., authorities, faculties, non secular, and different non-profit) prospects. The share of methods put in on agricultural properties has been rising over time; most of those are comparatively small methods (<20 kW), typical of a small household farm. Amongst non-residential methods, third-party possession (TPO) charges are highest for tax-exempt website hosts, particularly authorities and faculty services (TPO charges of 55% and 47% in 2023), which additionally are typically comparatively giant in comparison with different non-residential methods.

Battery storage attachment charges proceed inching upwards. In 2023, 12% of all new residential PV installations and eight% of all non-residential installations included battery storage. As traditional, Hawaii was in a class of its personal, with residential and non-residential storage attachment charges of 95% and 88%, respectively. Residential attachment charges in California rose to 14% for the 12 months. Most of these methods have been put in beneath the state’s legacy internet metering construction, however attachment charges for methods put in beneath the brand new internet billing tariffs, which strongly incentivize pairing PV with storage, reached roughly 60% by year-end. (Berkeley Lab beforehand revealed a more in-depth analysis of adjustments within the California photo voltaic market beneath the brand new internet billing construction.) Residential attachment charges in most different states ranged from 4–10% in 2023. Non-residential attachment charges additionally differ extensively throughout states, however are usually fairly low (<2%) in states with out focused incentives.

PV system costs fell year-over-year for residential methods, however rose for non-residential methods. From 2022 to 2023, median put in costs for residential methods fell by roughly $0.1/W in actual (inflation-adjusted) phrases, the identical fee of decline as over the previous decade. In distinction, median costs for non-residential methods rose for the primary time in 15 years, by $0.1-0.2/W. These small year-over-year adjustments are delicate to fluctuations in inflation, and the lagged impact on put in costs, which might differ throughout tasks relying on the size of their growth timeline. Throughout all three buyer segments, however particularly for residential methods, put in costs consist predominantly of enterprise course of and different “soft costs”.

PV system costs differ extensively throughout particular person tasks. Amongst stand-alone PV methods, put in costs differ by roughly $2/W between the 20^th and 80^th percentile values for each residential and small non-residential prospects, and by roughly $1.4/W for giant non-residential prospects (see Determine 4). That pricing variability displays variations in mission traits in addition to options of the native market, coverage, and regulatory surroundings. The report features a multi-variate regression evaluation that estimates the results of key pricing drivers on residential put in costs in 2023. The regression evaluation reveals essentially the most important impacts related to the inclusion of battery storage (a $1.4/W improve), variations in system measurement (a $0.7/W lower from the 20^th to the 80^th percentile system measurement), and installations on residential new building ($0.7/W decrease than methods put in on present houses).

We thank the U.S. Division of Vitality Photo voltaic Vitality Applied sciences Workplace for his or her assist of this work, in addition to the quite a few people and organizations who generously supplied information for this ongoing effort.

Courtesy of Galen Barbose, Naïm Darghouth, Eric O’Shaughnessy, and Sydney Forrester, Berkeley Lab.